Jefferson County v. Grafton

• Decision Date: 08 February 1897
• Citation: 21 So. 247,74 Miss. 435
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: JEFFERSON COUNTY v. KATE W. GRAFTON ET AL

21 So. 247

74 Miss. 435

JEFFERSON COUNTY v. KATE W. GRAFTON ET AL

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 8, 1897

October 1896

FROM the chancery court of Jefferson county HON. O. S. ROBBINS Special Chancellor.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Decree reversed and cause remanded.

Wiley N. Nash, attorney-general, and Jeff Truly, for appellant.

In a suit like the one at bar, the grantee is estopped from denying the validity of the title conveyed by the deed whereunder he took possession of the land. Cowell v Springs Company, 100 U.S. 55; Cromwell v Craft, 47 Miss. 44; Wade v. Thompson, 52 Ib., 367; Clemens v. Meyer, 44 La. Ann., 390.

The deed to the board of supervisors, in 1874, vested in the county of Jefferson title as against the world, subject only to the right of the state to object. Their power can be questioned from no other source. Quitman County v. Stritze, 70 Miss. 320. Boards of supervisors may, by law, acquire real estate for certain purposes, and, having such capacity, conveyances to them are not void, but voidable only. The sovereign alone can object. 4 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 433, and cases cited thereunder; Natoma Water & Mining Co. v. Clarkin, 14 Cal. p. 552; Hough v. Land Company, 73 Ill. 23.

Did the orders and instruments passed and executed by the board of supervisors divest the county of Jefferson of its title to the property in controversy? We maintain that this question should be decided in the negative, and for two reasons: (1) Incapacity of grantees, (2) lack of power in grantors to convey. Submitting to the court for determination, without argument, the question (which we think open to grave doubt), whether the self-styled trustee ever had the legal capacity to hold title to real estate, even under the first so-called conveyance of the board of supervisors, we do earnestly contend and insist that any powers they may have had were revoked and annulled by the order of the Presbytery of Mississippi, dated April 5, 1884, forming a part of exhibit F to the bill of complaint, by which the presbytery declined to accept the property subject to the conditions imposed, and directed the trustee to convey any title held by said presbytery, provided the grantees accepted the conditions--that is, established and maintained a first-class white female school on the premises. Granting that they, as trustees, and the association which they claimed to represent were capacitated to receive title to real estate, these powers were finally ended and revoked by the refusal of the association to accede to the conditions imposed by the first conveyance of the board of supervisors.

Have boards of supervisors the power to make donations of county property to private persons or for private purposes? Clearly, boards of supervisors have no authority to either sell or give away property of the county, unless especially authorized by an enabling act, or by some definite expression of legislative will. Howe v. State, 53 Miss. 69, 70; Supervisors of Jefferson County v. Arrighi, 54 Miss. 668 and cases cited. See, also, 50 Miss. 737; 73 N. C., 255.

Recognizing the fact that boards of supervisors were without authority to sell or dispose of the property of their respective counties, even where the property had ceased to be of use to the county, and when they could dispose of it on advantageous terms, the legislature passed a law empowering boards of supervisors "to sell and convey" county property (real estate) when "it shall cease to be used for county purposes." Annotated code, 1892, § 304. Unless the legislature was at fault, unless the learned code commissioners erred, boards of supervisors did not have this power prior to the passage of the law above quoted.

S. C. Coffey, for appellees.

Under §§ 500 and 501 of the annotated code of Mississippi, before clouds upon title can be canceled or removed, and the title be confirmed in complainant, it is incumbent upon him to show entire fairness of his own, and, further, he must show that he is possessed of a perfect legal or a perfect equitable title; the mere fact that he might show the invalidity of his adversary's will not suffice. Boyd v. Thornton, 13 Smed. & M., 338; Toulmin v. Heidleberg, 32 Miss. 268; Handy v. Noonan, 51 Miss. 166; Griffin v. Harrison, 52 Miss. 824. And complainant's bill must make full deraignment of its title--that is, he must prove or justify his title, otherwise his bill is demurrable. We submit that, in this controversy, complainant's bill absolutely fails to show either a legal or an equitable title such as should enable it to remove clouds and confirm title in itself.

A county maybe defined as a sub-political division of a state, deriving its powers to purchase and hold real estate by legislative enactment. Property of this nature, purchased otherwise than in the manner specified by statute, vests no title in the county, and could have no other effect than to subject the officers purchasing the same, or rather the officer who held the funds belonging to the county, liable for the misappropriation of its moneys.

The code of 1871 did not, nor the acts amendatory thereto, nor any special act of the legislature prior to the date of the purchase, authorize or empower the board of supervisors to invest the county moneys in lands. Said purchase being unauthorized by law, could in nowise vest title in complainant.

The second ground of demurrer urged against the bill is that it shows upon its face that whatever title complainant may have had to the property, was duly and regularly parted with, as shown in exhibits "B" and "C."

The entire bill does not comply with the requirements of the statute, so as to enable complainant to assert title in itself, nor to remove clouds upon the same. First, it fails to show any title to the controverted land; second, if complainant ever had title, it parted with it for a valuable and lawful consideration, and that the conditions of said purchase and the price paid to and received by complainant, was sufficient in law to pass title, and did pass title, to the purchaser thereof.

E. S. & J. T. Drake, on the same side.

We have the extraordinary spectacle of a complainant coming into a chancery court and showing by its own allegations that it has parted with all right, title, and interest to a piece of real estate, by deeds properly executed, two in number, and by resolutions of the corporate body duly passed and entered on the minutes; that it has sat quietly by for twelve long years and seen the title to this property pass, for valuable consideration, from vendee to subvendee and sub-subvendee, and then, after setting out all these facts, asking the court to cancel its own solemn deeds, and the deeds of its vendee and the subvendee, as clouds upon its title! A statement of the facts set out in the bill ought to be sufficient brief. The facts suggest a demurrer.

Section 304 of the code of 1899 was merely declaratory of what was already well established law. "The right to dispose of property, not held for public use, is inherent in all corporations, public or private, unless withheld by the law under which they are organized. And sales made by a municipal corporation, or board of supervisors, in the exercise of its discretionary power, cannot be annulled because improvident." 14 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 1063, text; 4. Ib., 378, text and notes, and 382, note 2; 15 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., p. 1063; 4 Ib., 378, text and note; 4 Ib., 382, note. And one board of supervisors is bound by the acts of its predecessors. 4 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 375, and note.

It seems manifest from the record that the purchase of this property by the board of supervisors in 1874 was without authority of law and ultra vires. The record is silent as to the object of the purchase. But it is certain that it was either a purely speculative venture, or else it was bought with a view to establish a college. The board was not authorized to make the purchase for either purpose.

OPINION

WHITFIELD, J.

The averments of the bill, so far as material to the solution of this case, may be thus condensed: That the county of Jefferson bought, for $ 4, 000, on November 17, 1874, of Gilchrist, administrator, under a decree of the chancery court, a tract of land on which were the buildings constituting the Fayette Female Academy; that on September 4 1883, the board of supervisors undertook to sell and convey said land to certain parties, purporting to be the trustees of the Presbytery of Mississippi, for $ 100, upon the express condition, set out in the order of the board and the deed, that the presbytery should "establish and maintain a first-class white female school on said premises, within ten years from the date of confirmation of said sale, " and that, if said presbytery should fail so to do, then "all of said property should revert to Jefferson county;" that on May 25, 1885, a new board of supervisors recited that the conditions had been complied with, in an...